Are Liches cheating by casting Protection from Magical Weapons?
toxin
Member Posts: 57
First - no spoilers please (including tactics spoilers, I just want the facts, would prefer to figure out strategies against liches - and indeed in general, on my own) 
The spell description states: "When the spell is cast, it confers complete invulnerability to all magical weapons. This includes weapons that are blessed or enchanted. The attacks of powerful monsters are also considered magical weapons. This spell cannot be cast on anyone who is protected from normal weapons as well as anyone protected by Mantle, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity..."
But Liches *are* protected from normal weapons, so what gives? Or did I misread the description, and the meaning is that it cannot be cast on anyone who is already protected by the Protection from Normal Weapons *spell* (which they are not as their immunity is innate, or technically speaking granted by the undroppable special ring LICH.ITM)?
Also, once they are protected, it is my understanding that the highest level spell that removes combat protection is breach, but since Liches are immune to level 1-5 spells, there's no way to dispel it, except for the inquisitor's dispel ability which is supposedly a level 0 spell and hence effective against Liches. Is that accurate? When I cast it on an elemental lich, not all of its protections were dispelled (if any), even though the console said "Elemental Lich - Dispel Effects". Specifically, I fought an elemental lich (uses Improved Mantle instead of PFMW), and after "dispel effects" I still saw the animations for fire shield and mirror image, and my magical weapons were still ineffective, so Improved Mantle wasn't dispelled either (he did not cast any of these again after the "dispel effect" message showed in the console, ergo they were never dispelled). Of course, Globe Of Invulnerability wasn't effected, but that's to be expected seeing as it's a spell protection.
Thanks!
The spell description states: "When the spell is cast, it confers complete invulnerability to all magical weapons. This includes weapons that are blessed or enchanted. The attacks of powerful monsters are also considered magical weapons. This spell cannot be cast on anyone who is protected from normal weapons as well as anyone protected by Mantle, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity..."
But Liches *are* protected from normal weapons, so what gives? Or did I misread the description, and the meaning is that it cannot be cast on anyone who is already protected by the Protection from Normal Weapons *spell* (which they are not as their immunity is innate, or technically speaking granted by the undroppable special ring LICH.ITM)?
Also, once they are protected, it is my understanding that the highest level spell that removes combat protection is breach, but since Liches are immune to level 1-5 spells, there's no way to dispel it, except for the inquisitor's dispel ability which is supposedly a level 0 spell and hence effective against Liches. Is that accurate? When I cast it on an elemental lich, not all of its protections were dispelled (if any), even though the console said "Elemental Lich - Dispel Effects". Specifically, I fought an elemental lich (uses Improved Mantle instead of PFMW), and after "dispel effects" I still saw the animations for fire shield and mirror image, and my magical weapons were still ineffective, so Improved Mantle wasn't dispelled either (he did not cast any of these again after the "dispel effect" message showed in the console, ergo they were never dispelled). Of course, Globe Of Invulnerability wasn't effected, but that's to be expected seeing as it's a spell protection.
Thanks!
Post edited by toxin on
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Comments
The description is almost correct. You cannot cast the spell on someone who already has one of the other spells active.
The creatures which have a permanent effect protecting them against non magical weapons, are not prevented from casting a spell such as PfMW. And btw this is your on case. At some point the protagonist can get a permanent protection against weapons with the lowest enchantement levels and you are still able to cast PfMW if you like to do so.
Dispel/Remove magic as a spell or innate ability.
The various effects in the game can be used with a dispel / no dispel flag. Therefore not all effects can be dispelled. For instance you cannot dispel the effects granted by the lich ring.
Is CHARNAME cheating by casting green Protection scrolls when fighting Liches?
And my personal opinion is "No" to both questions. All means are fine if you fight for you life.
As for the Breach spell working on Liches, the SCS mod has a component to make it work.
The SCS mod sounds interesting, is it stable and recommended?
http://www.gibberlings3.net/scs/
It is recommended. This is a huge mod which changes most files in the game, not just the breach component. However I suggest not using it for your first playthroughs.
Dispel: The liches cast the normal wizard spells which can be dispelled.
This does not mean you will effectively dispel them depending on what spell/ability you use, permanent immunities of your enemies, additional protection such as immunity to abjuration, immunity to spell levels etc...
That's why I love annoying them as well: if I see them chanting an alteration spell, it's a Timestop giveaway, so I move everyone far away.
Then I proceed to send Korgan with his extremely high saves, boots of speed and elemental resist gear and just stand there tanking the liches away as they spend their rounds chaining a billion PFMW and trying to affect Korgan with spells... spells he has 100% chance of saving against or enough resist to equal a bee's sting. If you enable HLAs for them, Fallen Planetar is the only dangerous one, but you can easily lead it away from the lich with the tank and kill it with the help of your party far away.
Kangaxx in lich form is the only one I recall that spawns in an area your entire party must be together...
I don't really have the patience to dispel their protections... usually they'll break target with improved invis, or they immediately start with Time Stop > Time Stop before you can damage them enough, they have a ton of PFMW chains... it's rather luck based as to wheter you can dispel them on the first round, and if you don't some of your weaker characters might as well be dead the next round after the Time Stop and HLA spam begins. There's always the chance you won't be able to break their concentration too because of the way the system works. And if you enable prebuffing they ALWAYS start protected from magic and fire... meaning even then undead specific spells are moot. False Dawn confuses most, at least, but that has a high casting time if not cleric/mage.
I do recall Death Fog affecting undead though, but I don't like using it since it seems more of an oversight considering the spell states all animal life and undead are well, undead. If you use it it's a very easy way just like Cloudkill wands annihilate all non undead mages no matter their level.
Dispel has to be cast at a higher level than the targeted spells in order to work...
If the Lich is level 25 and Inquisitor is level 10... Even with the double power it won't be effective.
Worth investigating?
@FinneousPJ my limited trials suggest that either all dispellable spells are removed (in the lich's case, everything except globe of invulnerability), or none are. Perhaps they implemented it as a single roll per spell level bucket?
@RedWizard I appreciate your post but please let's keep it technical and not discuss battle strategies (like I said I'd rather figure those out for my own).
Anyway, I think I'll just install SCS so I can breach these mofos.
I'm pondering which components to select though - obviously I'll take the spells and the AI tweaks (wouldn't be fair to change the rules and not tell the AI about it). I definitely won't take the item tweaks (overpowered items are too much fun), and the misc tweaks don't seem that important (and some seem pretty tedious). I'm a bit on the fence regarding the tactical challenges - are they just frustratingly/unfairly difficult or more towards satisfyingly challenging?
The new EE content scripts are IMO a real fair example of scripting (even if not developped/enhanced enough).
So, let's say you have a fighter who has been hit by a level 22 Lich with Symbol Fear. He also has a Haste and Protection from Fire spell from Edwin at level 16, and a Chaotic Commands and Death Ward spell from Aerie at level 14. Your Inquisitor is level 11 and casts Dispel Magic at your fighter.
Under my theory, you've got a 50% chance of dispelling the Symbol Fear spell. You also have a 70% chance of dispelling both the Haste and Protection from Fire spells, and an 85% chance of removing both the Chaotic Commands and Death Ward spell. If the level 16 Haste goes down, so does Protection from Fire, but you won't necessarily take down the level 14 Chaotic Commands and Death Ward spell, or the Symbol Fear.
I think there's a separate check for each caster, but not every spell or every effect.
From a technical point I do not think liches aren cheating since their immunity to normal weapons is innate and not from a spell.
Your Inquisitor's dispels might not be that good against liches since they have inflated as hell levels like 30+ or so, meaning you'd need to be 15+ which is pretty late in SoA already with a party of 6.
That specific lich (elemental) is actually lvl 20 so an inquisitor's dispel is pretty reasonable (even now I get 50% and I'm fairly early in). I've already decided to install SCS though, so Breach would be my first choice anyway
And I do believe that it IS for each individual spell, since there are a lot of times when every effect comes from a single source, but not all of them are dispelled. Recently in a fight a Remove Magic did remove a Fire Shield Red and the semi-invisibility from Improved Invisibility, but not the a Stonekin that was cast by the same character. This was against Leah Redsun, so there were no other casters even around.